Best looking / worst looking amps & preamps

Sean, I wear 13D or 14B so my feet are just average sized compared to those wingtips you had on at a Chicago Audio Society meeting a while back......Most of the Blowtorch owners are well over fifty and with the spring tension of the Shallcos it makes it easier to change inputs to have huge knobs. I could have gone smaller for the pot knobs, but chose to use the 2.25" knobs there as well. For decent shielding aluminum needs to be 3/8" thick and that and 56 heatsinks needed to be attached to the case and my machinist found a cheap way to hog out billets with blind holes so there aren't 56 bolts sticking out of the thing......Now that would have been ugly! I always liked that old Yamaha tuner made in the 70s and chose a similar look for the Blowtorch. At least it is distinctive........

Bob Crump
CTC Builders

Tandberg amps and preamps looked cool back in the 80s and they look cool now. Especially the tuner.

I know many manufactures use chrome finishes on their components. My vote for worst, are those. Chrome belongs on Harleys!

Interesting, to see a very old thread come to live again...... Anyway, the prettiest pre IMHO is the Musical Fidelity X-pre, especially with it's separate X-psu power supply. Heee, what a coincidence, I own both! And the ugliest amp would be my homemade poweramp, but since it tend to eat Krell/Mark Levinson etc. for breakfast, I don't really care.

"Sdcampbell":

My votes for the best and worst looking amps and preamps??

The "Best" Looking Gear (at least........ to me):

(01). Jeff Rowland Model 3 and 7 Mono Power Amplifiers and Coherence One Preamplifier (1984-92)(loved the gold front panels especially).

(02). Musetex (at least, I think that's how you spell their name........ small and unimposing looking amplifiers with the rosewood side panels........ also..... late 1980's).

(03). Threshold Stasis Series (mid 1980's until their last gear was produced in the mid 1990's).

(04). Counterpoint (if I was ever into tubes back then, this would've been the gear I would've purchased. To me, Counterpoint's gear (just like Audio Research) had a simple but elegant look about them).

(05). Convergent Audio Technology (I was always in awed of the CAT SL-1, later on, their monoblock tube amps wasn't all that bad either).

(06). Hovland (best looking modern tube gear if I say so myself).

(06t). Balanced Audio Technology (I rank them up their with Hovland, but compared to Hovland, BAT has more of a utilitarian look).

(08). Sim Audio.

(09). Mark Levinson (I have always loved the way their gear has looked (I loved the hell out of the "No. 26" Preamplifier back in the late 1980's...... and had the privilege to listen to it three times), and their modern gear DEFINITELY looks great now).

(10). Spectral Audio.

(10t). Sutherland Engineering.

(12). McCormack (late 1990's to present).

(13). Accuphase.

HOWEVER (!!!!) -- I am kind of in between when it comes to McIntosh's gear. They don't make bad gear at all. In fact, their gear stands the test of time. But I just wish McIntosh would produce some more stylish gear.

The "Worst" Looking Gear (to me) is:

(01). Hafler.

(02). Perreaux.

(03). Cambridge Audio (at least...... before their Azur Series........ at least, their Azur Series looks a hell of a lot nicer than their older gear).

(04). Adcom (their amplifiers could use some sprucing up, but they make of for their lack of style by producing a nice sound at an affordable price....... the GFP-750 Active/Passive Line Stage Preamplifier is a looker however).

--Charles--